Four Top Khmer Rouge Leaders Stand on Trial
Nuon Chea, a.k.a. Brother Number Two
The leaders of the Khmer Rouge appeared before a Cambodian court on Monday in a long-expected trial for crime against humanity.
The trial is held in a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating war crimes and is meant to be a showcase that would convey the message of impartial justice in a country long divided by and over the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in the ‘70s.
People of Cambodia showed interest in the trial, since 500 people, most of them victims of the regime, filled the courtroom, expecting to see their torturers in the dock.
The elderly Khmer leaders who stood together, uncuffed, behind a curtain to hear the charges against them are: Khieu Samphan, 79, who was the nominal head of state, Ieng Sary, 85, former foreign minister, Nuon Chea, 84, chief ideologue of the Khmer Rouge movement, Ieng Thirith, 79, former minister of social affairs.
The charges were war crimes, genocide, religious persecution and torture. The four leaders denied them all.
The next few weeks will be devoted to procedural issues, then the hearings will proceed with hundreds of witnesses taking the stand, and is expected to last for years, which brings into the question whether the defendants will still be around for the sentence.
The Four Leaders
The most important figure of the regime, Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, died of natural causes in 1998.
Khmer Rouge, a party of Communist orientation, was in power between 1975 and 1979, and went down in history as the architect of a national genocide, by its reforms, such as the reformation of agriculture, that led to famine, and the foster of the idea of self-sufficiency, which led to the death of thousand of people who could otherwise have been treated of their disease.
Torture, brutal purging of its own ranks were mass crimes that brought the four leaders and others in front of the internationally backed tribunal for crimes committed in Cambodia.
Victims of the Khmer Genocide
Kaing Guek Eav, a jailer in the Khmer Rouge system, accused of having killed some 15,000 people, was sentenced last year to 30 years in prison, being the most notorius case yet before the apparition in court of the four top leaders
